The Useful Duck!

Contribute to my Vacation, please...

Monday, October 31, 2011

My family likes to watch things like "The American President," and "The West Wing." Sometimes I find it painful to watch them.
It is kind of funny to hear a Mini-14 or an SKS referred to as an assault weapon. Especially in the context of Eric Holder selling AK-47's and M-16's to Mexican drug lords.
I especially like the irony of the President really and actually being in bed with a lobbyist.
Kind of funny.
I always need to be reminded of how much Hollywood and the rest of the clever folks hate people like myself and most of those who follow the Lazy Farmer.

Although... I would gladly take Andrew Shepherd or Jed Bartlet for president over the one we have now.

What it does not do...
Sensible stuff, like...
I think it should be harder to access porn by accident. I think porn sites should have a .xxx tag so that you can program your browser not to allow access them.

What you can't do...
Protect the identity of idiots who post all their personal information on facebook.

Anyway, that is just my opinion... I though the law was a pretty good example of all the stupid laws that go though congress. Like the food safety act that makes it basically illegal for small farmers to sell their products direct.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

It is once again time for my wife and I to celebrate the insane charge of the British Light Cavalry against the Russians at Balaclava.
Perhaps tonight we will wear sweaters...
Sometimes we call this event our anniversary...
It was actually Tuesday but I have a lot of planting to do and I declared a postponement of the dinner until tonight. I mean to go away for the weekend but I don't think that will happen.
Monday evening after finishing a field at 10 p.m. I drove into town to the all night supermarket to buy some roses. Roses are hard to hide. What do I do with them? Put them in the toolbox behind the cab of my pickup? They could cook next to the George Dickel I keep for medical emergencies.
So... I drove into town.
This would not have been that big a deal except it was the night it frosted and it was 34 degrees. That also would not have been a big deal except for the fact that when I went to roll up my window it fell off the track and landed in the bottom of the door.
That would not have been a big deal except for the fact that I did not have a coat as it had been a warm day.
But, I continued onward.
"Half a league, Half a league onward!"
And such seems to be the struggle of life.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

I listened to NPR today and and more and more convinced that the Occupy Crowds are a set up. I get taht idea not from conservative talk show hosts but from listening to NPR and KBOO programs. Our dear leader is talking about student loan relief. Why what an idea! Folks are clamoring for change and here it is! I swear the USA is turning into a banana republic.
So by divine fiat it has been declared that students will only have to pay back 10% per month instead of 15%...and the useful idiots cheered!
There is also some sort of loan forgiveness program.
This apparently affects on certain loans and not the Sallie Mae or Citibank loans that everyone I know had.
If you only pay back 10% then doesn't that mean you pay a lot more interest?
My question is why people are mad at the banks to begin with.
Perhaps a college education should not cost so much money!
Student loans are a terrible idea anyway. You are borrowing money for something that has no resale value or even an assurance of a return on your investment.
And if you don't get a job upon graduation then you are blamed for not working hard enough. No mention is made of the pathetic job placement programs offered by the college.

I need to get my acres perfect when planting as I have the exact amount of seed. Sometimes it doesn't matter but the next two planting jobs are a little touchy. The farmers just leave me with a truck load of seed and a truckload of fertilizer and go away. Sometimes they go on vacation, sometimes they do other jobs, but they are gone.
Once I didn't have my monitor turned on and left a couple of the seed gates open. (you can open them to clean out the drill) When I turned the monitor on the high seed rate alarms started going off. I looked in the box and was almost empty. I planted 400lbs to the acre of wheat. I just went about bought more and never told the farmer. He was gone anyway. He got over 200 bushel per acre and had the college out to do test plots. I think that was the first year he used humic acid. I think he attributed his yields to the humic.
He was giving me a little bit of a hard time about over planting. Instead of 130lbs of wheat per acre I planted 145lbs. The other day he called me over to look at his drill. It was half full and should have been empty. So, that was like an 70lb per acre mistake. Of course he doesn't have a monitor...
But, I digress.
I have a little magnet switch that turns the acre counter off and puts the Fertilizer controller on hold when the drill is raised. However, I lost one of the little stop collars off the hydraulic lift cylinder and it travel too far. This completely wiped out my little magnet sensors. Of course since I made the setup myself there is not dealer to call.
Anyway, I'm off to plant. I guess I can handle flipping a toggle switch on and off.
In other news, I sold my three shares of Apple stock. As much as Steve Jobs annoyed me at times, he was Apple. Now he is no more...

My stereo sounds like crap. No highs, but a lot of midrange. Suspect the cartridge. Someone buy me this replacement stylus?
Speaking of getting something for nothing.
Has anyone really searched for both sides of the occupy issue?
I found a blog which discussed the right wing blogger's response to the occupy movement and I was sad to see the Lazy farmer was not listed. There were some really funny blog names however.
I lost the link.
I seems that there would be someone clever enough in the Tea Party movement to forge a link on common grounds or at least recruit. The occupy people make good points and they have the energy but it seems to me to be somewhat misdirected. There are some amazing examples of "organic" type self government coming out of the movement. I think it is underestimated. More will come of these protests just like more came out of the "hippie" protests of the 1960's and a lot of it was BS...
And, The Eye Of Polyphemus got told off by a kind of interesting person and an interesting comment. It made me think twice about my blog.
Read the comments, ignore the baloney spouted by the Budd E. Shepherd fellow. He doesn't know what he is talking about...
What I was listening to this morning... Somehow it seems relevant..

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Farming for me is like swimming in mud. That is why I'm setting in my chair drinking coffee. I can hear the sounds of the neighborhood around me and everyone is working.
I attempted to work yesterday...
What did I do?
In the morning, an hour of phone calls which accomplished nothing...
Made two hydraulic hoses, changed the hydraulic filter on the 2-155. Greased the front end and tried to find an extra grease zerk on the front drive axle that is there on the MM G706. I didn't find one in the manual. I think the front drive is getting a little loose. I do not want to take that apart but I suppose I will. I also do not want to pay the dealer $100 an hour to learn how to work on the front drive on a White tractor.
I also looked up a videos of how to play "I love Rock and Roll," and "I want to be sedated," on YouTube for my daughter. I bought her a little guitar amp that plugs into her guitar and the headphone jack on the computer so she can play along with videos on youtube. She couldn't understand the guy either.
Then I helped her with cookies. She made oatmeal cookies for the first time by herself and I helped her take them out of the oven and scrape the pans. I also ate a few but I don't really like oatmeal and raisin cookies. I think the oatmeal should go to a starving horse and the raisins should go into these funny cookies my wife makes that have coffee in them.
But, I digress...
I attempted to shoot a huge coyote from way too far away and I missed... Daughter was amazed at the size of the coyote and didn't seem to mind that I missed.
Ate lunch.
Daughter left with her Aunt.
I wandered around aimlessly trying to remember what I was doing.
Made more phone calls trying to find a powerbin to get seed wheat in.
Went after Tetraplyoid (sp) ryegrass seed for a whopping 20 acres.
Hauled a drag harrow to the field with the tractor pull track. Screwed up repeatedly shifting the 13spd. I thought they were supposed to be easier to shift than a 5 and 4. Gave the retired truck mechanic a special thrill from hearing a 6-71 detroit going past his house.
Got a call from a guy who wanted pig feed so stopped everything to get out the mixer grinder.
Got a call from my helper that he had lost a dual off the 2-135 and that he had just checked the bolts and they were tight.
Drove loader tractor down the road to put dual back on.
Had to wait for the train.
Tried to make conversation with the lady who walks by our house twice a day who was also waiting for the train. Not much luck with that.
Put the dual on.
Got the truck with barley and hooked up the mill and auger and 2-155. Discovered the 2-155 will grind feed a little faster than an M670. Was talking to the neighbor while the whole Rube Goldberg contraption was functioning and accidently over-filled the feed mill. It all started coming out the top. Kind of messed up the feed ration. Oh, well...
Switched out 540 PTO and took quick hitch off 2-155. The three-point won't hold up over night and the tractor is hooked to the no-till drill the quick hitch comes down on the hydraulic hoses and multiple monitor wires going into the cab and screws everything up.
Talked on the phone.
Hooked up to the drill in the dark.
Talked to brother and employee about something for a half hour.
Walked to the house and took a shower as the barley dust was starting to drive me insane.
Made supper with the microwave.
Went to bed...
Woke up...Nearly shot the cat...Went back to sleep...It was morning...Tried to ignore the daylight...failed...thought about shooting the cat again....made coffee...sat in chair...blog...other farmers are working...brother is working....cat is still making noise....ate cookies....spun cat on fake hardwood floor, cat bit me...got more cofeee...sat in chair...cat is chewing on my foot....battery going dead on iBoooooooooookkkkkkk.......
Oh...wait... Look at this blog and website. This fellow made so pretty good comments on this other blog and I followed him to Texas... And that was the point of this whole post-I just got off subject!
Have a nice day!

Friday, October 21, 2011

I hate to call them "animals" as it seems a bit degrading to squirrels and turtles.
However, I think the new Islamic government will probably be a bit mean to the opposition. Of course that is ok because the opposition is of course evil and deserve what they get...
I was just amazed at the joy expressed by news commentators over the death of Moamar.
I want to know what happened to his elite team of Amazon body guards.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

The headline is farmer Jon Finds a Bomb. Somehow I did a word association and was thinking of farmer Mike who is a brother to Farmer John and wondering how he ever lost his BONG!
Then I see "Jon" and realize it is Jon Bansen and not... oh heck, you guys don't know the people we have picked up bales for so no one gets the joke anyway and if they did I'd probably get sued.

"Mike I don't really like tequila"
"Mike, I want to grow bourbon..."
"But you don't actually grow bourbon, it is made from grain..."
"Sooo, Mike, are you a Mexican now"
"Jose and I have an agave plantation in Mexico, yes, he is a citizen...)
"Mike, I want a bourbon plantation-in Kentucky..."
"Mike, what is with that shirt and those shorts, are you a homo?"

They were teasing this story since 3 p.m. on the radio yesterday. (KXL the home of Lars Larson)
The KXL news crew was right there at the scene and had audio but they did not actually report the story in any depth.
This guy was taking video of the protesters. They started screaming at him and calling him "racial offensive names." He says ok fine, come at me, I'll defend myself. And he shows them his gun in his holster. And he has had a permit.
He gets arrested. I bet you money the cops dropped him on the pavement.
The occupy movement is a tool of the current political establishment. They are your "committee of public safety," or your current, "brown shirts," or whatever tools the minds behind the revolution put in the streets. "Useful fools," perhaps you might say.
I've been reading about this and listening to the radio for the past two weeks. They have a few arguments that sound good but of course they do. These are the people who will clamor for change. And like all previous revolutions before-including the sad joke of the Arab spring, if we get the "Change" it will be bad for you and I and them. But most of them will be like the Chinese teacher stoned by her students during the cultural revolution and who died still loyal to the cause. (I couldn't find a link to that story using google-probably down the memory hole)
Anyway...
I guess the tea party really shook up the political establishment.
And one more thing- This complaint about student loans and banks. That is insane. Of course the banks want something back for making these high risk loans! My anger over my student loan was directed at the well respected private college that gave me a crappy education and pathetic job placement and then blamed me for not working hard enough. And at myself for ever getting a student loan.
Here is how college works... The editor of the student newspaper, the top 2 percent of the class, the kids who have a job/internship relating to their education get recruited out of college. The rest are on their own. If you want a job in journalism you volunteer at your local news outlet. That is how it works. Or you know someone who knows someone else.
Say you are a good student, you do what your advisers tell you to do. You think you are working towards a career and you find out it was all BS after you graduate. Sure you should have done more research and you should have worked three jobs to pay for your education. Not everyone figures this out. You are supposed to do what you are told... Student loans are an introduction to financial servitude. But the blame should also fall upon the college. You spent a $200,000 on an education and you get no warranty? You get a better warranty on your Apple computer that you HAVE to buy in college.
Why should the college president get a huge salary and college graduates be unemployed?
Riddle me that one Flea-baggers!!!!
(Lars ought to read my blog!)
Now I gotta go to work.
I guess I'm a one percenter and I thought that only applied to outlaw motorcycle gangs.

Apparently some elephants also escaped and they were in this ladies garden. The lady was not familiar with elephants having come illegally from a country where they have eaten all the elephants and sold their tusks on the back market.
She called the county sheriff and explained that there were large gray animals in her corn field pulling up the corn plants with their tails.
The officer (stalling for time whilst he loaded his Army Surplus M-16 and recharged his tazor-in case she needed to be calmed down) said, "Lady what are they doing with those corn stalks"
And the lady answered,
"Well officer-you'd be surprised."
She had never seen an elephant before...
Sort of like what happened in Zanesville, Ohio.
Wonder how close it is to Martinsville?

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

A fellow who had lions, tigers, and bears (oh my) set them loose and shot himself.
I listened to this on the radio today.
It appears local officials hounded him with zoning issues and put him in jail on a gun charge. (he was probably really annoying to his neighbors) He gets out of jail and sets the animals loose and shoots himself.
The police arrive and shoot all the animals. According to the first news report I heard, some of the animals were STANDING BY THEIR CAGES.
To quote from the article:

"Townspeople cowered indoors Wednesday as deputies with high-powered
rifles hunted down and killed lions, bears and dozens of other exotic
beasts that escaped from a wild-animal preserve after the owner threw
their cages open and committed suicide."

Were they afraid of the animals or jumpy cops with M-16's. (Which I just naturally assume is the modern definition of a "high-powered rifle."

But, then again-I could be completely wrong. It may very well have been handled in the best way possible and with absolute professionalism.
And I admit I have no idea what should have been done. Probably should have declared the area as an Occupy Wallstreet zone and killed two birds with one stone...
This article makes it all sound much more professional. (Click Here)

I got my daughter on the school bus and came back in the house to get my coffee for the day ahead.
I see I left the tailgate down on my pickup again. This time I drove five miles that way. I did not lose the generator or the five gallons of hydraulic oil that were in the back. I remember walking to the pickup last night and thinking I should close the tailgate. I guess I did not.
This means...
1. I am losing my mind
2. I drive really slow
3. The tailgate may not latch
4. I always have to think ahead as to what stupid thing I will probably do in the future and attempt to avoid doing it. Compensating in advance?

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Yesterday was another frustrating day.
I planted.
The fellow I'm planting for is applying humic acid in stead of 10-34 as fertilizer for his wheat seed. I don't think it works in the short term but I have no idea if it improves the soil in the long run.
He is getting it in 350 gallon totes and we dump it into the drill tank by lifting it up with a forklift.
This bypasses the filter on the drill pump.
Most farmers just bring me a 1000gal tank on a truck and park it in the field. This works much better.
All of a sudden the pump starts spinning too fast and shuts down. The auto rate controller is over compenstating.
I have a smaller screen on the filter to the booms than I have on the individual rows. The pressure gauge is on the boom side of the valve. So when the pump filter plugs I get low pressure and when the boom plugs I get too high a pressure.
I have not had a filter plug in a very long time. I did not figure out the problem right away.
Anyway, I had to pump all the fertilizer back out and flush the tank and filters. It was a pain in the arse.
I was listening to Lars....
Lars is opposed to guest workers on farms. He says they are taking the jobs of unemployed Americans and if there were no Mexicans than farms would have to pay more wages and get better help and the price of milk wouldn't go up that much.
I had to laugh, bitterly...
Lars needs to get a real job.
I have hired non Mexican workers. It is not that there are no workers it is that most available American workers past high school/college age totally worthless.
You may go through a few Mexicans but you will find one who works hard and cares about his job and if you treat him well he will stick with you. It ain't that way with second generation Americans anymore. The public school system has seen to that.
I am not hiring a drug addict or someone looking for a back injury or some idiot. AND, it doesn't matter how much you pay them, the quality of help is still the same. I've observed other farmers. Their good white workers have been with them since high school.
And that seems to just be how it is...

Monday, October 17, 2011

I was thinking about Frank James and his gun experiences yesterday. I like to shoot but I'm not really that serious about it. I like to shoot my .22 at tin cans. I like to shoot crows from time to time. I used to shoot Nutria's as they are a nasty non-native species.
But I'm just a casual plinker.
Anyway, Sunday a brother-in-law came out to do a little shooting with his son. His father bought a couple Olympic Arms AR-15's in anticipation of rioting in the streets after Y2K. They had never really had anything run through them.
He also brought along several pistols and a neat J.C. Higgins bolt action 12 gauge.
The two AR-15's were somewhat interesting to me.
I had only shot a Bushmaster AR-15 carbine in the past. It had a fairly short barrel and a telescoping stock. It has been some 30 years ago but I remember it as being light and loud.
The Olympic Arms AR-15s (don't know exact model) were solid and fairly heavy guns. They had bull barrels and very little recoil. You could hold steady on a target and blaze away.
One of them kept jamming on cheap ammo. Both of them had a very tight fit for the magazine. So tight you had to knock the magazine in with the palm of your hand.
After a little shooting there was a faint dusting of brass under the receiver where the cartridges fed in. I had a hard time hitting anything. I couldn't get my face and the stock aligned properly to line up the peep sight. This may be why I am a bad shot in general.
I also shot a colt commander in 9mm Luger. It seemed to shoot low and to the right. But perhaps I have one short arm. I kind of liked that one for a side arm.
Then I demonstrated my trusty old Mini-30. I aimed for the paint can I had failed to hit previously and on the first shot scattered gobs of clumpy old red paint everywhere. The third shot jammed as usual, so much for using it for "suppressive fire."
I kept thinking of Frank's reviews and trying to relate terms. It was fun but...
I sort of wanted to go fishing...

Saturday, October 15, 2011

I planted today my neighbor. I did 28 acres of wheat after 5 p.m. It took me a little longer as i had to load the drill and fertilizer by myself. Meaning I had to use his forklift and find the fertilizer.
We are almost done with our silage. Last night I discovered a hole in the spout liner on the silage chopper. It seemed like a simple fix but took two hours. I did discover how an adjustable spout on a New Holland silage chopper works. It is really quite handy once you get all the bolts broken loose.
Today I started chopping. My brother had the endgate break out of the silage truck last night. I discovered a massive leak on the hydraulic suction line on the White 2-135 which required new o-rings. I finished one field and opened the next and turned the chopping over to my brother. My planting customer was a bit anxious. When I left I got off and checked the chopper header. A gathering chain had come off the sprocket and the adjuster was badly bent. I left anyway.
I got the drill going but that was not without some problems. The automatic rate controller that powers a motorized flow controller that regulates the flow to the centrifugal pump that pumps the fertilizer kept sticking wide open which directed too much hydraulic pressure to the pump which tripped a shut-off valve. Then the magnet switch that tells everything to go to the hold position and stops the acre counters failed.
Then i noticed smoke pouring out of the foam generator. The foam generator makes a line of foam on the ground that shows where your last pass was. (The dirt was all damp and I couldn't see where I had been.) It is sort of strange to see smoke pouring out of something that pumps water and soap.
It has been sort of a bad week.
I've been listening to the talk on the radio about the occupy protesters. The conservatives are all jumping into defend big business which is funny. They give these arguments which would make perfect sense if the big companies did not have monopolies of most industries. How do you vote with your pocket book when there is no alternative? Sure I look at the tags and buy "made in Mexico" before I buy "made in China," but does Wallmart care. What am I going to do? Go to WHAT local hardware store???
It all kind of disturbs me.
Why do the folks in charge like these protesters so much? I saw what happened to the WTO protesters. The Tea Party folks were not well like either but they went out of their way to not cause trouble. The occupy people have a free pass in Portland. There was some violence in NYC but nothing like I expected. Those in charge have crowd control pretty well figured out.
I think this is a setup.
The call for Change. The campaign slogan was "Change." I think it all works together.
I see it as the old Leninist idea that the capitalists will bid against each other to sell the rope that will hang them.
The regulations were not enforced, the banks and wall street took advantage and built a house of cards, the rug was pulled out but the bail out money was offered. They took it. Of course the banks didn't want to make foolish loans again and so they didn't loan money.
And the protesters have it all charted out. The banks and Wall Street are the bad guys, Change is needed.
Of course the banks and Wall Street are bad guys anyway so it all works. But....those of us who work for our living will get caught up in it and suffer.
Change is bad.
I don't see any of the clever folks in the conservative movement getting it. They are to busy getting back at the "dirty hippies" for calling them "Tea Baggers."
Fools, we are all fools...
Have a nice day, evening, night... whatever...

Friday, October 14, 2011

Yesterday was an interesting day. My helper did show up at 8 a.m. and cleaned up the mess the dogs had made in front of the house. They like to rob neighborhood garbage cans. It causes me to get a little angry and I tie Stanley up for the day. Then he howls. This is entertaining at first, as is parking the pickup near his dog house and leaving it running. He just can't make it past the end of the cable so he sits about a foot from the end and just howls his poor doggie heart out.
After a while it starts to annoy everyone else out here and Stanley is set free.
But I digress,
I thought the problem with the silage chopper was just a broken chain. It actually was a broken drive shaft that runs through the bottom of the corn header and drives the intermeshing rotary discs that cut the corn.
It would appear that when the wheel broke off the chopper I hooked a chunk of concrete with header and bent the outside bearing mount. This made the shaft flex and it then broke in one of the bearings. It was something like one and a half hex shaft. But... Since we NEVER throw anything away we actually had some hex shaft we salvaged off a combine header and my brother-the machinist, made a new shaft.
The helper and my brother worked on the silage chopper all day and I went to plant for the neighbor.
My daughter had the day off from school and I asked her if she wanted to go with me. She said no.
I came back in the house and she was standing on her head and watching some inane cartoon. I said, "you are coming with me..." she was ok with that.
She likes to help fill the drill but the farmer said he had some nasty insecticide put on the wheat so I made daughter get back in tractor. (I really need to bring along a respirator.)
Anyway, she helped me by looking up records in my book to set the drill. She found the last time I planted Geotze wheat and the population reading for 130lbs per acre and helped me set the drill. We watched the monitors and set the fertilizer rate. I showed her how to set the A-B line with the GPS and then let her drive while I ate my Amity Deli Burrito. It was kind of nasty cold but I was hungry and it was cheap.
It was kind of like having my own auto steer. She drove really well by looking at the glowing arrows and little arrow tractor on screen. FarmerGPS 5 is a pretty good program. The other advantage was she was pretty good at alerting me at the end of the field. None of this going to sleep and hitting a powerpole with Lulu-autosteer. However, the alarm is set a little far from the end of the row.... "Daddy... Daddy... Daaaaaadddddddyyyyyyyy!"
It is now 7:18 my helper just arrived. He is going to finish putting the corn header back together. He is a good helper. He has a goooooood joooob! How can I talk bad about someone who cleans up the lawn and who comes to work early.
But I digress...
Later in the day it started raining and I send the daughter home. Then the return/by pass line for the motorized flow control valve for the fertilizer pump failed. POS Chinese pipe fittings. It would not hold when the pressure went above 1500lbs. After I tightened it up it started dripping at low pressures as well. The fine mist of $10 per gallon hydraulic oil will keep my drill from rusting.
Back at the farm, my brother and helper and working on the header. New lower gathering chains are New Holland proprietary items. They cost $240 each and it takes four. We opted for another year.
We had to heat the frame of the header and beat it with a sledge hammer to get it back in line. We quit at 8:30 p.m. and decided to see what it looked like in the morning light.
Here is the little about Lars...
He does really well with a sympathetic caller or guest. It is only when he is trying to be clever and insightful and really stick it to the caller with his amazing intellect that he really gets into trouble.
There was a fellow who called in to talk about a new national child abuse hotline. Lars asked him if people who called in to report abuse would be reported to law enforcement. The guy really would not answer the question. Lars kept after him in a polite way and really got the guy to squirm, without being a jerk. If he would do that same thing with the antagonistic folks I would listen to him.
I will stop my rant and go to work but I have one last thought.
I think the law requiring therapists and Doctors and clergy to report abuse is counter productive. I think it prevents people from getting help. Would a child report abuse knowing they would get their parent thrown in jail? Would person who made a mistake and was torn by guilt and wanted to get help, do so knowing they would be reported to LE? What about crazy people who make crap up and tell it to the therapist?
What is the point? The power of the all knowing state or help for messed up folks?
Shouldn't the professional who is treating the victim or the abuser have some discretion?

Thursday, October 13, 2011

So... Yesterday morning when it was too wet to do anything my helper arrives early...
Today, the silage chopper is broken down and covered in mud and wet silage and there are side racks to be finished for the truck...
Where the #$%^&* is he?

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Plus The Legendary Stardust Cowboy makes more sense...
I once heard Lars arguing with Mr. Geertson about Roundup-Ready Alfalfa. I wish I would have taken notes. Lars gets Mr. Geertson to answer these totally leading questions and then he plays his trump card. Which was something on the order of since RR Alfalfa has been engineered to be "better" than regular Alfalfa isn't that a big advantage and shouldn't everybody use it? I could just hear Mr. Geertson's brain exploding. Fifteen minutes on the radio and the idiot talk show host absolutely cannot understand the argument.
All the legitimate debate of corporate monopoly, the risk of foreign countries not accepting exports because of their opposition to RR Alfalfa, cross pollination problems, RR resistant weeds, and Lars focuses on the most obvious, superficial, and stupid argument!
(I don't really care about RR vs non RR, it just irritates me to pay $4 per pound and have to plant 20lbs per acre. Perhaps that is why I have a pallet of Alfalfa seed in the barn that I bought because the salesman accepted my offer of $.50 per lb. It was a good deal so I bought 10 times what I needed. At least my wife understood. She laughed at me. I couldn't be a talkshow host because I wander off topic. Where was I?)
Have a nice day...

I'm shamelessly bumping this post up in the Google Search ratings. Click here to see what I said about Lars Larson being a maroon last night.
I found this article which I think proves me correct in my opposition to Lars using terms like "Dirty Hippies," and pointing out the obvious. (Click Here for blog on Occupy movement)
There is a lot of energy in the Occupy movement. I don't think it should be trivialized.
I heard that after they got their extension cord unplugged from the charging station they were using a stationary bicycle to charge cell phones.
Many people in this movement are smart and creative. I think that should be recognized.
Just because I say that doesn't mean I support them.
I think it is bad to be the group that is caught behind the curve. Those are the folks that get sent to the re-education camps...
I wonder if the reputation defender program that Lars plugs will alert him to the fact that a Lazy Farmer in Oregon thinks Lars is an embarrassment to the conservative movement?
Wonder what keywords I would have to use?

Not to bury my attack on Lars....
I have a question. I suppose it is pretty much hypothetical but...
I was away from home planting all day yesterday.
It was raining.
My helper quit early. I think he worked on his car. He did give me a ride to get my pickup. He didn't want to work late. It was wet and unpleasant.
OK, fine... No problem...
So...
Today it looks like the sun will be out. However, it is still cold and wet. There is mud everywhere. We can't chop silage for an hour or so, in my humble opinion.
Why did he get here at 7:15 a.m.? He is out at the store drinking coffee with the Uncle. And he keeps texting me. I'm not feeling so well this morning. My family had a bit of a bug, picked up from school.
I worked in the dark and rain last night, I often work at 7:30 a.m.
Why can't you figure out that if there are 2" deep puddles in your parking lot, the fog is so thick you can't see five feet in front of you and...as you said... you serviced everything yesterday.... that your boss may not want to come out of his house right on the dot of 7:30 a.m.?
Am I not the Lazy Farmer?
AND, the second issue... If you arrive at work a half hour early could you not look at the white board that has lists of unfinished jobs dating back 2 years and just pick something and do it? What about putting tools away? Picking up trash? Washing the windows on the silage trucks, putting diesel in the transfer tanks in the pickups, any number of things but texting me five times.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

I am unabashedly conservative, Christian, and somewhat patriotic but yet I find those with which I should share a common viewpoint to be idiots and morons.

We are no longer mainstream. The best and brightest are no longer with us. I have no idea what it says about me but I will mention my personal bias right away. I like Minneapolis-Moline tractors, Triumph Motorcycles, and Studebaker cars. I have a non IBM iBook, I like Kipling, I sometimes read my Bible, I have no gun newer than 10 years, I have two reel to reel tape recorders, a couple turntables, I watch movies using a movie projector, and I collect Marx Johnny West figures, as well as Marx tin lithographed barns, metal toys, old books, and the occasional typewriter.

On that basis I feel no need to apologize for not exactly being cutting edge on the cultural curve.

Today I was listening to Lars Larson. As usual he was driving me nuts. He is such a maroon.

He was referring to the Occupy Portland twits as "dirty hippies," and talking about them crapping in the streets. When one of them called in he went off on stupid arguments about currency and banking and code violations. He never asked any questions that led anywhere. I didn't need a lecture on how banks operate. I have seen "It's a wonderful life," and I know about the Building and Loan. However, I know little more the people occupying Portland now than I did when the show started. (Other than they stole electricity from the electric car charging station-glad someone is using it, and they didn't have a parade permit.)

I almost called in and complained but as I was starting to dial I realized that I don't think that quick and get confused easily and he would have gotten me into a stupid argument about semantics and made me look like an idiot and then congratulated himself.

How hard would it have been to just do a polite interview type conversation? I suspect the caller would have made plenty of inconsistent statements on his own. I think there are some ideas that perhaps Lars should review, who, what, where, when, why, and how, oh right-he was a TV reporter. I guess that explains a lot.

Some totally basic sample questions:
Who are you and how did you get involved in the Occupy movement? Tell us your unemployment story? (and then don't comment on how lazy the guy is-just let his statements stand)
What are your goals and what are your complaints? (so he doesn't really know or have anything-just let it stand on his own, don't point out the obvious!)
What do you want that is different from the Tea Party protesters?
Who are the people you look up to?
If you have this loose organizational structure and as you say your are people getting together but have many ideas, how do expect to articulate your ideas and find goals to accomplish?
Who decided to occupy Portland?
Why do you not get the proper permits?
Why do you think the cops are not beating the crap out of you like they did the WTO demonstrators?
How do you feel about the opposition to the Tea Party in Portland and their problems with the police and do you see a double standard when you have so much in common?

This should get a good discussion going and then you can go on from there asking perhaps more leading questions and getting some real information.

Then if you want to annoy the guy you can throw in some polite questions that will get him going:
Are you really crapping in the street?
When did you take a bath and are you a hippy?
Should someone rent you some port-a-potties?
How much coffee do you drink in a day?
Did Sam Adams march with you because of the possibility of underage boys or because one of your organizers agreed to touch him down there?

I have this sneaking suspicion that the Tea Party just annoys the liberals to no end because they see themselves as the protest movement and now the people they hate are stealing the show, and doing it in a peaceful, orderly, and clean manner.
I suspect that the Occupy movement is just an anti-Tea Party movement.
I worry that behind it is the same social manipulators that bring out the protesters in favor of Hugo Chavez.
I am disturbed that Sam Adams (mayor of Portland) seems pretty enthused with them. The counter-culture has become pretty main-stream here in Oregon. I think they are useful tools of the current administrations.
After all, the Government bailed out Wallstreet. Sure the banks and corporations took what was handed to them.... I think it is a setup.
And...where are the Anarchists? What dark sinister forces call them out and who made them stay home...

A good interviewer could have worked a lot of this in. It is a shame we have people like Lars at the microphone. Calling the protesters "dirty hippies," more than once or twice is stupid. It is such a shallow attempt to diminish their voice. It is the same ploy used by liberals on the Tea Party when they call them "Tea Baggers." Going on about parade permits and crapping on the street is begging the obvious. Of course it is civil disobedience.

I really doubt the common goals of the two movements will complement each other. The Occupy movement is probably just an exercise in activism-if we need a riot how many can we get out. But, the moral high ground should be taken. (At the same time the double standard shown to the Tea Party movement must be shown.)

It would be pretty funny if the Lars Larson talk show would rent a bunch of Port-a-Potties for the protesters. Or send a KXL van down with hot coffee. But, I don't see the establishment Republicans capable of any real clever long range thought. (I suppose the subtle humor would be lost and the Port-a-Potties would be vandalized and lars would loose his deposit.)

Later I heard Lars interviewing a candidate for the Indiana legislature (I think) on his national show. He did a really good job of getting info from the fellow. I missed most of it as I was dodging crazy drivers on a very narrow road in the rain with a wide grain drill and having near death experiences. Then I hit a really big bump on the road and lost my record book with 6 years worth of no-till planting records out the tractor rear window when the window latches were dislodged. Perhaps I am just grumpy from chasing scraps of paper down the highway in the rain.

I think those of us who just want to be left alone and cling to our out of date beliefs and traditions and not bother anyone else are pretty much screwed.

Monday, October 10, 2011

We are chopping silage in between the rain showers. We have a new truck driver this year. He is filling trucks and doing quite well. I started about the same age but with a 1949 Studebaker. He is starting with a 1973 International. He actually is driving a newer truck than I did!

Sunday, October 9, 2011

I have been trying to figure out the chords to "Mary Anne," by Marshall Crenshaw. I can't play guitar but my daughter can. She is destined to hate the music I like but I've been trying to get her at least enthused.

I thought it would be an easy D, A, G, then G, A, D.
It didn't sound right so I looked it up. They say C, G, Dm but use barre chords. I'm not sure how you even spell "barre." I can do a couple but I do them wrong...
She want's to play poptropica. Durned kids...
Perhaps I'll go out to the barn and try "tapping the admiral."
I like Marshall Crenshaw...

Man does he look old...
I think he play Buddy Holly in the Buddy Holly story movie.

1. Why was it that the Crusades are considered a humanitarian crime on the order of the holocaust, (assuming it happened) but the Islamic Conquests are not even considered?

2. Why are the various historical Christian excesses, like the witch hunts, Spanish Inquisition, treatment of indigenous people, continually brought up as proof of Christian brutality but are never compared to excesses of other ideologies. What about paganism in general? Are people by natural brutal and self-serving or are they naturally good?

3. Timothy McVeigh was not a Christian Fundie why does his name come up when people are desperately searching for examples of Christian terrorism. For such a hot button issue as abortion-Just how many abortion clinics have actually been blow up? How many doctors have been shot? Is it one or is it one thousand? I honestly don't know.

Now here is the point of this whole post. I lifted this quote from the Wired article, "The best strategy for undermining militants, Gawthrop suggested, is to
go after Islam itself. To undermine the validity of key Islamic
scriptures and key Muslim leaders."

And that little quote is why I am writing this blog post, has not this already been done with Christianity? It was just one sentence that really caught my attention and with that idea in mind I read the comments. Higher education in the west has been devoted to the undermining of key Christian ideals since the post WWII era. The difference is that of course they are correct. Christianity is based on flawed concepts and all the Christian leaders have feet of clay, (oops! a cultural/biblical reference) We are our own gods, except for Islam which of course for some reason we love and defend because somehow we want their approval...

I have somewhat of a cynical viewpoint. I think humans will be controlled. In fact, I think they desire control. I think that 20th century Christianity gave us a good framework of values. Plus, it allowed for the whole peace love and understanding thing. Dissent was tolerated! There were levels of belief and non-belief for everyone. But yet we still had a common framework of core cultural values.
I hate to see it be destroyed. I wonder why Islam seems to the new control system of choice by the hive. I don't see a conspiracy of one or two people. Rather it is a conspiracy of like-minded people. Similar values, similar schooling, and similar experiences who are all making similar choices without directly communicating. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of people and then millions of people all making the same choices and having the same attitudes.
Are such things studied?
I wonder if it could be statistically charted?
I am sure there are the global elite who are right on the scene to effect change in some way. Much money and power can be made from societal change. I think Islam channels a lot of cash into the hands of their leaders.
Just what I've been thinking about.
Next post will have photos of corn harvest.
I leave you with one of the anthems of a generation. Is that relevant? I think my choice of musicians is ironic.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

I helped a friend pick sweet corn today. It was pouring down rain at 4:30 a.m. For some reason the cannery never tells you to start picking your field at 10 a.m. It is always at 10 p.m. or 3:30 a.m. I think they like to work in the dark.
We picked 30 acres. It was too wet to run trucks in the field so they had to use large dump boxes. I pulled on with my 4wd White.
It is sort of interesting but I am grumpy due to my unsupervised helper's excessive use of a cutting torch on the corn chopper header in my absence.
Good Night...
Thanks for the link from Zeta Wolf who should allow comments. I suppose it is a bit of a different world...Kind of like the following cartoon. (wish I could afford it on 16mm)

Monday, October 3, 2011

I woke up this morning and it was still dark. This was not because it was early in the morning but rather because it is late in the year. It is raining and the sky is a dull gray. It is supposed to shower all week.
My daughter had not accomplished her 90 minutes of reading for the weekend. Instead she opted to watch stupid movies. She started out watching an incredibly stupid cartoon on OPB but she was complaining about not getting her reading done so it was shut off. Soon she was busy reading a Cowboy Sam book to make up her minutes. Cowboy Sam is not 5th grade literature but the pictures are awesome. I think Jack Merryweather is much underrated illustrator.
We were supposed to take pumpkins to school for the kids to decorate. Of course you can't use knives in a modern school. Somehow I was supposed to get her to school early as she had forgotten to do a math problem. I didn't get her to school that early but I got the pumpkins.
On the way out I noticed that the employee had arrived. He left early Saturday when we were trying to get a field worked before the rain. I suppose coming in early on Monday and drinking coffee for an hour while I take my daughter to school and get my stuff together makes up for the days he left early or came to work late when we could actually farm.
On the way we discussed her reading. She got angry and frustrated at me. I told her crying was not going to get her reading done and instead of watching stupid movies all weekend she needed to do her reading. Putting it off till the last minute was not a good idea. I did not add commentary as to why I know that is a bad idea.
Once at school we saw the law of unintended consequences at work. The ladies have been complaining about people parking in the firelanes. There is a new Principle who takes her job very seriously. There are changes, a new sheriff in town. Now the kind of out of the way parking lot I use is for staff parking and the close parking is for the annoying young ladies to park to drop off their kids. I do what ever I can to avoid those ladies because they are always late and have poor judgment. (see a previous post on that subject)
There are new security measures in place at school These probably do nothing but they are annoying which is the only language young mothers understand.
The latest child disappearance was most likely planned by a family member and while it took advantage of a lack of security at the school, more security would not have prevented his disappearance, it would have just happened in a different manner.
Just the same, all of us adults are now potential abductors and should all be suspicious of each other. I just wander where I want and act apologetic and admit to being confused. This works very well as the school is run by middle aged women who find that polite and confused act very endearing.
Once back at the farm I found a list of people who want me to do things. I've not been answering my phone which really annoys people. In fact I just turned the durn thing off and put it on the charger in my pickup.
I had just settled down to sit a spell and take advantage of the wireless internet when my brother came looking for me. A nice elderly lady was at the shop and quite upset because I hadn't returned her phone calls. I started to explain that I also hadn't listened to her messages but then I realized I'd have to explain the reason, which was I just didn't want to be bothered. It was really nothing personal, I just didn't feel like talking on the phone.
She wanted a bill for her hay and to answer the question as to if I was going to do hay at Gopher Valley next year. She doesn't know what she will do if I don't do her hay.
What I needed to say was that I would do her hay if she paid me more, as in just giving me $55 a ton instead of doing it on halves. But, then again I am really tired of going up there and having everyone complain about how late I am and then dealing with storage and hauling and rough fields and impossible barns to stack in and just doing hay in general.
I told her I wasn't able to do her hay in a timely manner and was tired of everyone being mad at me for not getting it done. I said she needed to find someone who would get it done on time. She pointed out that there was no one but me to do it. I wanted to suggest that in that case folks should just get off my case and say thank you and bring me cold drinks and be happy in the summer instead of bringing me down with their negativity.
I working on her bill right now.
I suppose I should go down my list of phone messages and call people back. I think there is about 20 of them.

Tuesday morning update: Monday afternoon I took off to get 1/3 of a pig as we are out of protein at our house. When I came back my helper was gone. The silage chopper header was turned over and the shields were off so I assume he was working on it.
This morning I got a text that he is having back spasms and may not be in to work today. Now here is the deal... My brother is taking my father to the Dr. today. I made an appointment to deliver barley seed this afternoon. Half our corn is ready to chop for silage. I need to work 50 acres to plant annual ryegrass. I just got a 175 acre planting job, plus a 17 and a 7 on the wrong side of McMinnville (which I should have turned down), I told my daughter I would take her to the Zoo Friday, my brother drives truck Thusday-Friday, the silage hauling truck is not ready, the drill is half full of annual ryegrass, the silage chopper needs to be put back together, the oil needs to be changed in the 2-135 and the 2-155, and of course.... My helper is not here today...
Perhaps it will rain all day anyway...
Whatever...

Tuesday Noon update: My neighbor needs me to help him with sweet corn. It is too wet to run trucks in the field to pick so he picks into a large box which then is dumped into a truck. The box holds 5-7 tons and takes a 4wd tractor to pull in the mud. I don't think I have ever been involved with picking sweet corn in daylight hours for some reason so it looks like a night job. This is good as I will be able to work on the corn chopper during the day and run the dump box at night.
I hit my hand with a really large hammer. No visible damage other than a loss of my Christian Sanctification and a possible hole in the ozone layer due to offensive language-actually I didn't say anything out loud. It was an internal commentary!
Plus the silage chopper header needs to be rebuilt. There are bearings that seem to be loose and a broken grease line. How can something so simple be such a pain in the butt to work on? Why are New Holland Parts so #$%^&* expensive?
I could use that 1.2 million dollars right now.
I think I'll go fishing...

Sunday, October 2, 2011

I was home alone today and decided to go fishing. I borrowed my daughter's fishing pole and headed down to the river. I figured out how to get to a couple spots where we saw some fish staring at us as we floated down the river on an inner tube earlier this summer.
So I braved the coyote crap and the black berry vines and nearly fell in the river but at last I arrived at the secret spot. It didn't used to be a secret spot. In fact when I was a kid there was a deep hole with a big old cottonwood tree and a rope in it. But, the tree washed away and the black berries grew up and we put fifty feet into a buffer strip for the NRCS.
I'm not sure if I really want to eat a fish out of that section of the river due to the amount of lead in the gravel. I did find an old propane bottle with a rather large bullet hole in it, so I guess that is part of the legacy.
I threw out a line and got a strike right away. I didn't get the hook set and lost it. I could see him following the spinner in but that was it. That was about it for another half hour. I tried a couple different spots and I managed to lose a nearly new lure.
I was about to leave but I had an old MEPPS spinner in the bottom of the tackle box and I gave it a toss between a couple logs into what I figured was a pretty deep hole.
I got a hit pretty quick. It was actually a bit of a fight with the bass attempting to dart under logs and under the edge of the bank.
I was thinking about eating him but then I wondered how I would ever get him up the river bank. So I tossed him back.

I tried a different spot a little ways downstream and promptly hooked a stick. In the process of pulling the hook out I broke off the end of my daughter's vintage Shakespeare Wonder Rod. Somehow I feel kind of silly now that I know it is a fly rod.

Oh well, I've been called a Philistine before...

In other news we are watching the movie "Country Strong," which I have heard is a pretty terrible movie. It actually has some pretty good country music in it. The story line is pretty much a throw-away. Guy wants to sing, girl wants to sing, big name country singer making a comeback but has a booze problem. Gweneth Paltrow is the big name singer. She is pretty pathetic, fake accent, and real life annoying image that I just can't shake. We turned if off when it looked like there was going to be a sex scene. I did like the music, if we could just edit out Gweneth. She should stick with Glee...